We talked for hours and hours and hours, and we feasted on good things, and the time flew by.

The menu… Sweet peppers and hummus (thanks, Marisa!), followed by the frittata that didn’t want to cook, accompanied by Julz’s amazing fruit salad (balsamic vinegar is the secret ingredient), and then raspberry cake, which Katie brought from The Nice Bakery.

And then, of course, we discussed Blizzards and genealogy and DNA. And Julie described her typewriter ribbon quest — the woman seriously is taking the typewriter to a whole new level, and I’m in awe. And Katie served as our personal gardening guru.

The books… we all read different things, but there’s some interesting overlap. We talked about The Underground Railroad and Homegoing and Commonwealth.

And Marisa raved about Lincoln in the Bardo on audio (all those narrators!) And she talked about The Mothers by Brit Bennett and I tried to decide where to rank it on my TBR. Still deliberating on that one… (If you’ve got an opinion, let me know!)